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Disable Thumbnail Previews in File Explorer in Windows 10

In Windows 10, File Explorer is able to show small previews for image and video files you have stored on your disk drive. To speed up this process, it uses a cache file hidden in the user profile directory. When a file is cached, File Explorer reuses the thumbnail from the cache to show it instantly. You might want to disable thumbnail previews in File Explorer if they are affecting performance in folders with large number of items.

Here is something you need to know before you continue. If you disable thumbnail previews, file previews will no longer shown in the preview pane. Folders will no longer show a thumbnail preview of their content. Also, in the classic Personalization window in the Control Panel, desktop backgrounds will be shown as icons. In fact, all these changes speed up File Explorer and make your directory navigation notably fast. This is the reason why you might want to disable them.

About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.